West Lothian, also known as Linlithgowshire (its official name until 1925), is a historic county in the east central Lowlands of Scotland.

This then became a standalone local authority area in the most recent major reorganisation enacted in 1996, retaining those same boundaries and name.

Westlothiana ("animal from West Lothian") is a genus of reptile-like tetrapod that lived about 338 million years ago during the latest part of the Visean age of the Carboniferous.

The county was radically changed by the Industrial Revolution, (from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840) with the opening of deep-pit iron, coal, and shale oil mines, as well as foundries and brickworks, which dramatically altered the landscape.

[6] When the cannel coal resources dwindled around 1866, Young and his chemical works started distilling paraffin from much more readily available shale.

The historic county of West Lothian or of Linlithgowshire contained six burghs: Armadale, Bathgate, Bo'ness, Linlithgow, Queensferry, and Whitburn.

Areas outside the burghs were administered as districts, of which there were also six: Borrowstounness, Linlithgow, Queensferry, Torphichen & Bathgate, Uphall, and Whitburn & Livingston.

[16] In the Second World War the county adopted during Warship Week the destroyer HMS Wallace raising over £547,000 in donations.

Figures from industry and academia include John Fleming (from Bathgate, a naturalist, zoologist and geologist), Sir Charles Wyville Thomson (from Linlithgow, a natural historian and marine zoologist), and James Young Simpson (an obstetrician and significant figure in the history of medicine).

[21] Most of the bedrock surface area is underlaid by Carboniferous sedimentary rocks running in strips from north to south, with a variety of glacial deposits.

[22] In the middle of the county there is a large field of shale oil running south to north (underneath the settlements of Broxburn, Livingston and West Calder), then sedimentary and basalt rocks, which supply silica sand.

[22] In the far west of the county, a large carboniferous coalfield exists; it extends underneath Whitburn, Blackridge and Harthill.

[22] The oil shale in West Lothian is an organic-rich, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be extracted.

This extraction was carried out extensively in the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by a process developed by the chemist James Young.

West Cairn Hill is the highest peak and Current County Top (CoU) at 562 m (1,844 ft).